


Where We Fear to Tread

by lotus0kid



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Rumbelle Christmas in July (Once Upon a Time)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:09:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25505710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotus0kid/pseuds/lotus0kid
Summary: Gone to see Alewyn the Illusion Mage of Fallinel.Might be tricky. If I’m not back in the turn of a moon, smash the vial and find me.I think you know better than to break our deal whilst I am away.
Relationships: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold
Comments: 15
Kudos: 30





	Where We Fear to Tread

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peacehopeandrats](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacehopeandrats/gifts).



> Happy Rumbelle Christmas in July! This fic was written for peacehopeandrats using the prompt "anything canon or gap filling".

Perhaps the truest thing Rumpelstiltskin ever said was his description of the Dark Castle as a rather large estate. It’s corridors and galleries seem to stretch for miles and miles, particularly when Belle knows for certain she is the only person wandering them. Not that Rumpelstiltskin ever tells her when he’s leaving, it’s just a sense of emptiness she gets, inside and out. The walls seem taller, the sound echoes differently without his presence.

She’s started scratching a tally mark each day while taking afternoon tea by the kitchen hearth. Otherwise, her days are filled with dusting and sweeping and mopping, organizing and airing and washing, polishing and wiping and- WHY IS SHE BOTHERING TO DO ANY OF THIS?

It starts as a niggling annoyance in the back of her head, as days of isolation stretch beyond a week. Within another week she tires of her off-key singing and the little utterances she makes to herself turn to sharp and bitter grumblings. What is the point of having her toil away from one end of the castle to another and back again if the master of the house isn’t even going to _be_ here? Her knees are bruised black and blue, her lower back aches, her hands are cracked bloody- and it’s all for nothing.

Not even the knowledge that her drudgery pays for the safety of her village keeps the anger from seeping in deeper and deeper until she’s clenching her teeth and mangling a sponge in her fist as she scrubs at some long neglected flagstones. The poor thing rips with another hard scrub and the heel of Belle’s hand scrapes over the rough stone. She hisses and jerks back, cradling her stinging hand to her chest. As tiny beads of blood well up, her smoldering anger finally bursts into action.

She leaps to her feet and storms through the castle until she reaches Rumpelstiltskin’s laboratory tower. She mounts the stairs, making sure to give every step a punitive stomp on the way up. This is a place she’s only visited a few times, as a semi-willing test subject for some not especially pleasant but far from lethal experiments. There is an unspoken agreement that she would most likely do more harm than good if she tried to clean up in this room, so she’s kept her distance throughout this long absence. But now she throws open the door and marches in with her breath snorting through her nose, determined to get some kind of answer as to when this unendurable isolation will end.

She’s hoping for some kind of calendar, an appointment book, or even a letter sent to Rumpelstiltskin requesting his aid. She finds none of those things. Within seconds, the burning glare she casts over the room is arrested by a piece of parchment folded and placed on its top and bottom edges in the center of the laboratory’s largest desk. The word “Belle” is scrawled in his messy script beneath a layer of dust. It has clearly been waiting right here for her the entire time.

Rage now at a rolling boil, Belle stalks over to the desk and snatches up the note, dragging her eyes over every letter.

(Gone to see Alewyn the Illusion Mage of Fallinel.  
Might be tricky. If I’m not back in the turn of a moon, smash the vial and find me.  
I think you know better than to break our deal whilst I am away.)

Fury roars through Belle as she stares gape-mouthed and trembling. He left a single bloody note in a place he _knew_ she would almost certainly never go, and at the end of it he _dares_ to question her honor, when she gave her _word_ , when she staked the _lives_ of everyone she’s ever known and loved on upholding their deal, and she only finds out after _well_ more than the turn of a moon spent working herself to the bone to render this enormous castle immaculate for the pleasure of exactly _no one_.

“Vial, vial, where is the _fucking_ vial?” Belle snarls while stuffing the note in a pocket, “Find him? Oh yes, I’ll find him. And I’ll _kill him!”_

A tiny vial rests innocently just where the parchment was set. She grabs it and hurls it at the floor in an instant. A swirling purple cloud of magic follows the unsatisfyingly faint tinkle of broken glass and Belle gladly lets it swallow her up and whisk her away, presumably to Fallinel.

When the last of Rumpelstiltskin’s magic slides off her cheeks, she opens her eyes and finds herself surrounded by greenery and flowers. She scowls at the kaleidoscope of color as it resolves into a tunnel, a place where centuries of travelers have worn a hollow into the ground, and now walls of roots and dirt and shrubs extend halfway up and the rest is covered by arching trunks and branches of trees. Belle looks down the path the way she faces, then over her shoulder in the opposite direction, wondering which way to go. Eventually she decides the transportation spell probably dropped her facing wherever it is that Rumpelstiltskin currently resides, and so marches forward.

If she wasn’t so spitting angry, Belle supposes she might enjoy this lovely spring day in Fallinel. The breeze is light, soft sunshine dapples the road before her, and the air is scented with newly opened blossoms. However, a fresh pulse of furious determination spurs her on when she spots the path open up ahead. She’s nearly running by the time she mounts a small incline and emerges onto what she first takes for a field of wildflowers. Then she notices a stone walkway leading in amongst the riot of blooms. As she takes a few careful steps onto it, the field before her resolves into a labyrinth bordered by waist-high rose bushes bristling with thorns.

“Right,” Belle growls, “If only I’d thought to bring my hedge clippers.”

At least the weather remains fine as she stomps her way through, but as time goes on it starts to feel almost mocking as she hits dead end after dead end. Forest distantly borders the wildflower maze and Belle can only hope she’s supposed to aim for the gap in the trees that aligns with the spot where the stone walkway began on the opposite side. She carries on for what feels like hours but can’t be as the sun stays fixed in the cloudless sky just off of high noon. She might expect to grow hot and thirsty under the endless shine of it, but the air is so temperate she might as well be in a stone room.

More twists and turns in the labyrinth, more dead ends and backtracks. She comes closer to the gap in the trees, but so slowly that she feels a scream burn in her throat with every time she must retrace her steps and choose another way. At one point she looks up and realizes only two hedges separate her from the gap, and in that instant longing for the cool leafy shadows within swells up and mingles with her anger at being here at all. That swirl of emotion takes control of her legs, walking her back several steps and then launching her forward at a dead sprint. One grunting leap carries her over a hedge, and so does another, and she barrels down into a new hollow road without even tearing her skirts.

The flowers have been subsumed by every shade of green here. Belle slows to a walk and tries to enjoy the hard-won shade, but the air has grown heavy and thick around her. The sweat she expected while traversing the sunny maze now gathers at her temples and drips down her back. She fans herself but it feels like the moist panting of a large dog.

“It was such a lovely spring day,” she grumbles, “Why does it feel like the dead of summer?” At least at home she could catch the breeze off the Endless Ocean. Here the tree branches high overhead may sway, but not a breath of wind makes it down to where she trudges along, sweat-streaked head sinking between her damp shoulders. She tries to distract herself with memories of splashing in the gentle surf out past the marshes of her village. With her eyes fallen shut she thinks the sound of water is just a creation of her homesick mind, but she realizes it isn’t the lapping of waves on the edge of her hearing- it’s the bubbling music of a creek. She almost cries out in relief, eyes popping open to rove around and find the sound’s source.

She jogs forward and down another dip in the path to discover a stream crossing it, rushing quick and shimmering under the sunbeams that pierce through the trees. Even from several steps away the air feels cooled and freshened by the water and Belle can’t help but stumble forward and drop to her knees at its bank. For a while she simply draws in lungfuls of sweet air, her relief so powerful it seems the world politely excuses itself and she’s left with nothing to do but bask in the experience of sitting by this beautiful stream.

Her deep breaths are almost enough to replace the water sweated from her by the horrible humidity, but she decides to finish the job by reaching out and scooping some crystal-clear water to bring to her lips. She tilts the liquid into her mouth- and feels nothing. It touched her lips, she’s sure, but it didn’t pass them. She frowns and takes another scoop with both hands, taking a second to stare hard at the water before pouring it into her mouth- and again feeling not a drop actually flow inside.

She lets the water trickle down into the grass where she sits and finds herself staring at the bright green blades, then the rounded stones and damp earth at the stream’s edge, then the water itself, and the path ahead, and then at fluttering leaves and gnarled bark and the sun still fixed above, just off high noon.

“Alewyn, the Illusion Mage of Fallinel,” she murmurs, hand slipping into the pocket where Rumpelstiltskin’s note lies in a crushed ball. A lump of dread falls into her stomach, and as if in response, a cold wind whips down the path, making Belle flinch and draw up her shoulders. She looks to see orange devouring the green, starting in the distance then roaring up to fill the path with a fire-less blaze.

_Might be tricky_ , the note said, and a quick translation through the filter of the Dark One’s professional ego tells her this Alewyn could be as dangerous as they are clearly powerful. Dangerous enough to put Rumpelstiltskin through the humiliation of leaving that note asking his maid for help. He had no intention of leaving her alone for weeks on end. Alewyn must be keeping him here.

But where? With illusion magic, Belle can’t even say where she is herself. The only thing she has to go on is the bit of Rumpelstiltskin’s magic in that vial. Perhaps it’s altering the illusion, creating a path that will lead her to him. _Either that or I’m traipsing along straight into the same trap that got Rumpel._

Well, she’ll never find out which it is if she stays sitting at this likely nonexistent stream. She casts one more glance at it, now able to see the unnatural perfection in its speckled stones and tiny waterfalls and artful swirls of bubbles. She sighs and stands and walks straight through, carrying on with totally dry skirts.

She chooses to appreciate the imitation of autumn’s proudest glory as she goes. The air has turned crisp and bright. Fallen leaves dance on the wind, which holds a teasing scent of apples and cinnamon. That ever present sun starts to sink, darkening the bark but lighting up the leaves to a sumptuous riot of gold, orange, and red. The temperature dips with the sun, and Belle rubs some warmth into her bare arms, and then frowns. It’s not real. It’s not getting colder, it’s not getting darker. She’s no more walking in an autumn forest than she was traversing a garden labyrinth in spring or sitting by a stream to escape summer heat. And yet, the light continues to dim, and shadows push in around her. And the leaves don’t just lose their vibrancy, they seem to vanish, baring the long twitchy fingers of empty branches grasping at the deep blue sky.

The smell of spices flits by again, along with a snatch of song and laughter. Belle remembers the harvest festivals from home, full of dancing and feasts. She also remembers… She sees- a glimmer in the thickening gloom, deep in the forest, far from the path. A distant bonfire, attended by a happy throng. Surely she’d be welcomed there, a mug of spiced ale pressed into her hand and a place made ready to sit and hold her palms up to the merry blaze. She’s been so alone, with nothing but echoing thoughts in her head and footsteps down empty halls. What she wouldn’t give just to laugh at a joke, or hear a story, or simply have a conversation with another sentient being.

_“I like to watch the wheel. It helps me forget.”_

_“Forget what?”_

_“I guess it worked.”_

Belle’s lips twitch at the memory at Rumpelstiltskin’s joke- that little quip that was just the right mix of strange and funny. It made her want to know more, so much more about the sorcerer whose magic allowed her to save her home by losing it. But then came the alarming ladder incident, and before she could work up the nerve to ask for his story, he was gone on this Aelwyn business. It may be possible that she was less angered by his absence than she was disappointed, and hurt.

And now she’s scared, as she snaps away from gazing at the bonfire and refocuses on the path ahead. It’s not real. None of this is real except for Rumpelstiltskin. If she ever wants to hear his story, she cannot allow herself to be distracted for another second.

Belle fixes her gaze on the ground ahead of her, and walks. The grass turns brown and withered. She keeps walking. Darkness closes in. She keeps walking. Frigid wind howls through the trees and digs nails of ice into her body. She hunches her shoulders and keeps walking. Snow swirls into view and crunches underneath her feet. She lifts her head to check her progress and finds it a pointless effort- the way ahead is obscured by a roaring blizzard.

“It’s not real, it’s not real,” Belle tells herself even as her breath puffs out in steam that’s stolen away by the wind. Her skin starts to burn with the cold and she clamps her arms around her in a desperate attempt to keep her body’s warmth from being stolen. “It’s not real!” she shouts at the storm. The anger she lost returns, but now it’s directed at whoever this Aelwyn person is. How dare they put Belle through this? How dare they keep Rumpelstiltskin from her? She marches on, scowling into the white-whipped darkness.

But the flame of anger can’t convince her body it’s not trapped in the middle of a horrendous snow squall. Her legs are numb from the knees down, as is her face. Her walk has slowed to a shuffle through ankle-high drifts. She’s all but blinded by the spray of snow, but when she lurches on a patch of ice her eyes pop open wide, and she gasps to realize there are a pair of windows glowing with firelight ahead. Reason tells her this is likely another distraction, but then a bone-deep shudder wracks her body and she decides whatever illusion waiting inside can’t be worse than the one that’s killing her out here.

She staggers forward, squinting through the storm to keep sight of the windows. Eventually she falls against the door of a thatch-roofed hovel that seems to be where the path ends. Knowing she must get inside or crumple to the ground and let the cold consume her, Belle tugs open the door and thrusts herself inside.

She is instantly blanketed in warmth emanating from a lit hearth and she leans back against the door to as it eases away the bitter cold. This only takes a few seconds as this new illusion asserts itself as a room that manages to be cozy with just the bare necessities. A lady such as Belle has certainly never been inside such a rustic place before, but she finds one thing that has become deeply familiar since she became a maid. Aside from the crackle in the hearth, the only sound in the room is the creak of a spinning wheel.

Belle cranes her neck to peer around a corner where a slight man is seated at a wheel, head bent low to his task. She edges closer, trying to get a look at the man’s face. It’s mostly hidden by a fall of gray-streaked hair. She opens her mouth to hazard a greeting, but a glint draws her gaze down to take in a basket piled high with gold thread.

“Oh, I see,” Belle breathes. Aelwyn trapped Rumpelstiltskin in a web of illusion, then turned him into a living gold mine. Belle would almost admire the daring of the scheme, if it wasn’t so fiendish. The man before her seems so mindlessly ordinary, robbed of all animation but that which allows him to work the wheel. He hasn’t so much as glanced in her direction though she stands only a few steps away. Belle’s hands clench and unclench as she prepares to wake Rumpelstiltskin. Tipping over the wheel should do it, she thinks. She hopes.

“Papa!” cries a small voice, nearly startling Belle off her feet. She whips around to watch a young boy jog in from somewhere else in the illusion. He comes around the wheel and drops down to sit on the floor with his head resting comfortably against Rumpelstiltskin’s knee.

“I- I’m almost done, son, almost done,” Rumpelstiltskin murmurs, voice hoarse and small with exhaustion. Belle doubts he’s done anything but spin for days, for weeks.

“Are you? I don’t think so.”

Belle and Rumpelstiltskin glance down to find the basket of gold thread is now empty. “Oh… I suppose not. Oh dear…”

“Keep spinning, Papa,” the boy implores, “We have to be ready for market day.”

“Aye, son. We’ll be ready. I promise.”

Rumpelstiltskin bends his head even lower. The wheel picks up speed and a new strand of thread gleams on the wheel. Meanwhile, the boy has turned wholly un-childlike eyes on Belle. “You won’t disturb my papa while he’s working,” he intones as if stating an immutable fact of the universe, and his eyes shift from deep brown to icy blue.

“I mightn’t, if I thought for one second that he was your papa and you his son.” Belle swallows, straightens her spine to its woefully minimal height. “Just dispel all this. Let us leave in peace. You’ve had your fun and gotten your gold, let’s not make things difficult.”

The boy smiles like a sickle. “But there’s so much more gold to get, and even more fun to be had.” He climbs to his feet and stalks toward Belle. “You’re no witch. No sorceress. In fact, I think you’re nothing but a little, tiny… mouse.”

She’s trapped in his cold eyes, which seem to grow and rise and- surely she was taller than him a moment ago? But the walls of the hovel are retreating, the ceiling drifting up, and her nose is twitching and her fingers are curling and before her teeth become too big to speak past she cries, “RUMPELSTILSKINNNnn _eeee!”_

…

The mouse stares up at the enormous boy whose snake eyes keep her pinned to the floor in pure terror. There’s movement in the corner of her vision- a rising foot. She squeaks and flees, darting here and there, searching for any kind of shelter, all while a faint voice in her head yells about something that must have been quite important but certainly not more important than escaping from the boy.

“Don’t worry, Papa, I’ve got the mouse!” the boy gleefully booms above her. His foot stamps down to her left, she wheels and bolts the other way only for her path to be blocked by another foot slamming in front of her. “I’ve got it! I’ve got it! I’ve-”

There’s a crunch, and the boy lets out a sharp squawk and a gurgle. The mouse pauses and looks up to see his limp body held by the neck in two scaly, black-nailed hands. A ripple shimmers over the corpse and leaves behind a pale blonde woman. The hands open, and she drops to the floor. The mouse skitters backwards, staring up at the new monster revealed behind his felled prey. He looms over the mouse before bending down, those killer hands cupping around on either side of her.

“There now, dearie,” he croons, “You’ll need some time to come out of this, I think. What a waste of talent that Aelwyn was, eh? Ah well, come along now…”

The mouse is scooped into the hands and she waits to be crushed, but is cradled instead. They’re moving, her and the monster, and she curls up in his palms, letting her eyes slip shut.

…

For a while, there is a sleep in which a mouse dreams she is a woman. Slowly, those dreams lose form and shift into a meaningless gray. On the other side of the gray, a woman dreams she is a mouse. She wanders in these dreams until she finally approaches the much more confusing state of being commonly agreed upon as reality.

Belle opens her eyes. Fresh spring air drifts over her face, guiding her unfocused gaze to the tall windows of Rumpelstiltskin’s laboratory. They stand open, and the sorcerer himself stands before them in still and silent contemplation, hands clasped behind him. Belle heaves a sigh, and he spins on a heel to face her.

“Ah! Awake at last.”

“I, uh… yes, I suppose,” Belle replies, peering at the cot she lies in, “What happened?”

Rumpelstiltskin tilts his head. “What do you remember?”

Belle rubs at her eyes as if that might clear the fog from her head. Vague memories and hints of sensations flit through her mind. Awful humidity and frigid cold. Fiery leaves and a stone walkway. An empty basket and a glass vial. A pair of icy blue eyes, sharp with cruelty. “I was dreaming. I had the strangest dream.”

Rumpelstiltskin saunters closer. “Indeed you did. But it’s over now. No harm done.”

“Yes…” Belle pushes herself up and climbs off the cot. She sways slightly on her feet, and wonders for an instant if going on all fours would be better. She shakes her head, and walks to the steps.

“Belle?”

She pauses, looks over her shoulder. “Yes?”

Rumpelstiltskin fixes a steady, opaque gaze on her. “Thank you, most kindly.”

She blinks. “For what?”

He gestures around him. “For your excellent work. The castle is as spotless as it’s ever been. Well done, dearie.”

His smile is bright, and Belle tries to return it. But her mind is still half asleep, idly listening to the creak of a wheel and crackle of a fire. She ducks a small curtsey then leaves the laboratory. Why she would’ve gone to sleep there, she has no idea. She does her level best not get involved in anything that goes on in that place.

Later, when she stumbles upon the room that contains a chest with neatly folded clothes meant for a boy, one of her vague memories will come into sharp focus. The need to hear Rumpelstiltskin’s story.


End file.
